Thread: The Gasman's Winter time hints.

If you have lived in snow and icey parts of our country all your life then this info might not help you. But for the younger croud, or new to very cold weather or even if you just need to know... i thought id share how i deal with my own gasoline issues in the winter.

Starting with the gas cans in your garage or shed that you use to keep the yard equipment running...that gas will start turning/going bad after about 3 months time, depending on the heat of your area so get rid of it.
What i do is take what gas i have in the two cans and combine them in one can. Now one of them was 2-stroke/mix but i dont worry about that. Take the empty can with you and go fill your car with freash gas and put a gallon of freash gas in the empty can. Go home and dump the mixed up old stuff in your cars gas tank. As long as were talking only 1 or 2 gallons its not going to make a difference to your car. It will burn, mixed with that freash has you just put in your tank. Now im not going to be responcable for your car if it only has a 4 gallon tank, its some hybrid, and you just filled it half full of bad gas. A little comman sense here please. I drive a nissan coupe and it has a small tank but i dont ha e a probkem with this. But in my opinion, most cars have a big enough tank that 1 or 2 gallons of old gas with a touch of oil is not going to matter.

Now i have one can with a gallon of freash gas so i dump half of it into the empty can so that i have two cans with 1/2 gallon in each. I add the proper amount of mix/oil in one can so i can get good gas in my weedeater as it runs on 2-stroke. I will dig out the oil changing pan that i have and dump whatever i can out of the weedeater and lawn mower into the oil changing pan. I recommend doing this in the dirt or street. Not your new concrete driveway or grassy yard as it always seems to make a little spill. Clean up your mess.

I then add whatever winterizing product i like to use to my freash gas cans. Im not going to get into what is the best product to use. You can figure that on your own. Ask friends or neibours or whatever. Fill your mower and weedeater or whatever equipment your getting ready with the properly winterized freash fuel and run the machine for 10 minutes or so. This gets the good stuff into the machine. Shut it off. Drian the tanks again from the machine into the oil change pan.

Now you have treated your equipment so put it way. Take the gas that is still left in the cans and oil change pan and dump those in you car fuel tank. Now you have desposed of the bad, old gas, primed your equipment with good treated gas and filled your car.

As far as treating your car...
I will treat a full tank of fuel twice a year. But i only let the tank go about half empty throughout the winter time. This keeps a little treatment in you tank at all times. After a few tank fulls of gas ill treat it again as if it had no treatment left in it.

So if you have any questions and comments, or maybe you do thing differently post them up. Sorry about going on so long but i couldnt figure a better way of doing it. And if im waisting my breath then so be it. Maybe it might help one guy out so he dont have a break down.

For those of you that run diesel pick-ups and big trucks...
If you want to treat your fuel for winter and dont want to pay the high price for additive, locate a place that sells #1 fuel oil. #2 is standard ultra low sulfer diesel. Mix it in your diesel vehicle at 20% #1 and 80% #2. This is the way its done to make winterized diesel. I do this in my fuel trailer and deliver it to stores. Its also what i run in my fuel tanks on the 2017 Kenworth.

If you have any questions just ask. Ive been hauling fuel a long time so i guess you can say i have a little inside knoladge on it.

And as always, if you damage you vehicle or youself im not responcable but i wont tell you a fib.

BTW, i dont put additve in my diesel until it is 20 below 0 outside. At 40 to 50 below 0 is when you had better have a heated battery compartment.

Thanks for the tips, Jerry-I tend to listen to a man who steers an 80,000 pound bomb down Colorado mountain roads safely, year after year-that must involve some occasional sphincter tightening moments I imagine. Aaron

Yeah, you know it. Sometime once a day! Or more i should say. Takes the fun right out of it.

Cheers Jerry.
In little old England we are embarrassingly behind coping with winter.
About 5 years ago London Heathrow cancelled all flights because of about 4 inches of snow and one year all south east trains were cancelled because of leaves on the track. Then a good few million of tax payers money was spent on some machines to remove said leaves then after a few weeks all trains were cancelled as the "wrong type of leaves" were on the track, I kid you not!
How we ever had an empire...

I did similar today to what you mention Gasman. Mix the summer leftovers in.

I buy Non Oxygenated gas to store for things like the mower or chains saws or the generator.

I just empty most of the fuel and run the mower etc until it runs out of fuel and store them dry.

Never been to England. The wx sounds prety nice. Might habe to put that on the bucket list.

Storing a mower dry works, ill give ya that. What worrys me is rubber drying out, getting cold and brittle. like carb diaframs and hoses. If you treat the fuel then a little treatment gets on the rubber and helps. This is just my therory. No proof.
When storing my bike for the winter (back when i had one) it had a carb. Not fancy fuel ijection like some have now. But, id fog the engine thru the carb. Put a nice coating of oil on everything. Then covered all inlets and exits to the engine with plastic wrap and rubber bands. Kept the rodants out that way too.

We all have our ways and as long as our equipment keeps running we are all right. Now if your mower wont start in the zping or needs rebuilt, maybe you should try something different. Ha.

Another point that comes to mind is storing with empty or full fuel tanks.
I find that with most mowers and small engine equipment, they have little tanks. Condensation will happen inside a fuel tank. The less air space in the tank the better when storing. When storing the bike (6.2 gallon tank) i stored it full. A mower has duch a smaller tank and is usually plastic. So i store those empty.
JMHO.

When it gets cold you can always add a gallon of regular gas to your diesel to instead of additive and a little easier to find. Tc. Take it from me , I use more diesel than most ever will use or haul. Tc

While fuel storage is a very important issue in the winter or in times when a gas operated machine isn't used for a particular period of time, I agree with you Jerry but for some things, rodents & other pests will try to find a home for the winter when it gets cold, just like the raccoons that inhabited my attic 3 years ago. As a former Harley Davidson service tech, I have found nests in the fairings & side covers of Harley's in which the owner also had electrical issues & it was because these pests had chewed through the wiring. I have also seen it in cars, trucks under the hood & in other places. If you have not driven a vehicle for a given period of time, it is not only good to empty fuel tanks or use an additive but to check places that pests might have found a home for the winter.
Thank you for your thread Jerry.